how can i tell if my dog has mange? and will it make me sick?

i have a 9 year old spitz and the past few weeks she is shedding gobs of hair. in huge patches. she literally scratches herself to the skin. i vacuum daily and it is totally full of dog hair. she was just to the vet a few weeks ago and he said to brush her more. but when i brush her it takes off gobs of hair all the way down to her bare skin. i let my dogs sleep in my bed and i have been very sick lately. im thinking it is the dog. my other dog seems fine though.

It could be thyroid problems or a whole lot more of assorted med. condtions.Take to another vet,.. get some blood work done.I think more extensive tests could be done to determine the cause,.. if the fur loss is so bad.If no sores or wound-looking appearance under the loss fur, then prob. not mange.May be just a coincidence that you are unwell,... prob. fr. the stress of it all.But pls. take dog to a vet,... another perhaps.Gd. luck.

There could be several causes for this. First off, is your dog totally flea free? Flea bite dermatitis will drive some dogs crazy with the itching and scratching/chewing to the point of chewing themselves raw. If this is the case, you must treat your dog, your home and your yard at the same time to get rid of the fleas. If it is mange, the only way to diagnose it is with a skin scraping at the vets. Both demodectic and sarcoptic mange will require special dips to get rid of it. Of the two, only sarcoptic can sometimes be contagious to humans. It will not make you ill, only itchy and a rash. If neither of these are the problem, I would also have her thyroid checked. This is another common culprit in dogs that are itching, scratching and loosing hair. If she is low thyroid, it's easily corrected with a daily dose of thyroid medication.

mange is terrible. it is caused by tiny mites. they burrow under the skin and lay their eggs. the eggs hatch in the skin tunnels and feed off the plasma produced by the dog in the tunnels. plus the mites themselves feed off the blood of the animal. it is terribly itchy and annoying. the dog will itch so much that it damages the skin and there will be oozy nasty big sores where the hair comes off. these then become infected and terribly sore. depending on what type of mite it is depends on the treatment. it is easy to get rid of if you take the dog to the vet. but if you don't treat it, it can eventually kill the dog. i have had dogs with mange and the vet had a hard time believing me it was mange. i knew it was because we live in the country and a month or so before my cocker spaniel got it we found a dead fox with NO hair and sores all over its body. the dogs had been playing with it!!! (stupid dogs) so I was sure that is what she had. i finally talked them into testing her for it. they take skin scrapings and look at the skin under a microscope to see if they can find the actual mites. they never could find any mites but decided to treat her for them anyway. (i have a good relationship with my vet) they gave her a shot and within several days it started to clear up. but she was a mess before that! then about 5 weeks later my german shepherd started to show the same symptoms. got him treated and took care of it.also, yes, mange is contagious. HIGHLY. and yes, humans can get it. but our body temp is not right and the mites die quickly on us. but it can cause you to see red stringy itchy patches on your body. as far as the other dogs, it can take several weeks, even as long as a month or so, before you see it appear on your other dogs. but it could also be a host of other things. could be flea allergies, could be dry skin, could be thyroid problems, if it was summer I would say it could be "hot spot" but in any case you need to take the dog back to the vet and make them do something about it. i would also complain that you already have brought her in once and the problem wasn't fixed. they need to figure out what is wrong. that is what you pay so much for!